This is a feature about Upstormed Inc founder Jonathan Anthony Burkett, part of our weekly look at his music, books and story.
Some albums are built around a single hit. Jonathan Anthony Burkett’s 2024 EP Life As I Know It is built around a single idea: that change is hard, but it is necessary, and that dreams are worth chasing anyway. That message, which his official music page uses to describe his overall sound, runs through the titles of all five songs on the record.
Earlier this week we looked at his 2014 single “One Life” in Songs for the Hard Days. This weekend, we step back to look at the whole EP and the team of singers who helped him make it.
Five songs, five collaborators
According to jonathanburkett.com, Life As I Know It has five tracks, and every one of them features another vocalist:
- “Changes” featuring Elisa Polanco
- “Don’t Give Up” featuring Elisa Polanco
- “I Can Only Be Me” featuring Kiarrah Guerra and Kristin Nicole
- “Two Steps” featuring Michael Pashalian
- “One Life” featuring Ambelique
The site describes his sound as hip hop and soul with an uplifting message. Press notes on the site single out “Changes” as one of his strongest compositions, built on classic hip hop elements and conscious rapping, with R&B hooks carrying the chorus. “Changes” and “Don’t Give Up” both have music videos, and the songs are also collected on the 25-track Upstormed Records compilation released the same year.
Titles that read like life lessons
Look closely at the song titles and a pattern appears. Several of them line up with a series of short life-lesson books that Burkett lists as coming soon on his website: One Life, Don’t Give Up, Everything Changes, Two Steps Ahead and Born To Make It. The last of those also shares its name with his 2024 album Born To Make It.
In other words, the EP and the planned books are two ways of telling the same story. One is meant to be played in the car or through headphones; the other is meant to be read slowly and returned to. Both are aimed at people going through a hard season who need to hear that the season is not the end.
Where the message comes from
Burkett’s published biography explains why those themes matter to him. He was born in Miami in 1987 and raised in Jamaica by his grandparents. On January 30, 2006, he underwent brain surgery after a series of seizures, an experience he writes about in his memoir, Neglected But Undefeated. We covered that chapter of his life in Through the Operating Room Doors.
His website sums up his mission in one line: faith gets you through, and no one is defined by where they started. A song called “Changes” and another called “Don’t Give Up” are, in a sense, that mission set to a beat.
How to listen
Life As I Know It and his other releases are on his Spotify artist page, and the music videos are on the Videos page of his website. If you are new to his work, the EP is a good place to start because it gathers several of his collaborators in one short record. For his books, see our guide Where to Start Reading Jonathan Anthony Burkett.
Read more: From the Founder: Why I Give Thanks for the Storms I Survived
Which song gets you through a hard week? Tell us in the comments.
Learn more at jonathanburkett.com
Sources: JonathanBurkett.com, “Music” (accessed November 14, 2026); JonathanBurkett.com, “Jonathan Anthony Burkett” home page and biography (accessed November 14, 2026); Spotify, “Jonathan Anthony Burkett” artist page
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